I know. It's rather scary just how ambitious they've been this season, and how good they are.

Being an uber-anything (and lets be honest, we all know where my passions lie) in these days almost feels unfair. A lot of interesting teams are doing a lot of terrific stuff. I mean, we have an ice dance team from Spain that has a lift as thrilling and innovative as any we've seen. We have skaters that seem to defy gravity and physics and are pushing their bodies to incredible extremes. I still geek out over D/W's rotational lift (the one that requires Meryl to do approximately ten thousand crunches day to pull off). But any team that gets me to ask ".... HOW DO THEY DO THAT" at least three times in any given program (and for D/W, it's the opening lift, that rotational lift, and the spin) deserves respect and enthusiasm.

yes as long as the criticism is constructive and actionable... to say that an athlete is a wicked witch or a prince is neither.

And that was the point of my diatribe.

As noted by others, C/P are only 19/20, and in my book that still makes them pretty young. And when the boy is younger than the girl, the team can seem really young. I think some of the criticism of this team's "chemistry" or perhaps lack thereof, will maybe fix itself with age and maturity. These 2 just have a very young vibe. There are some really young skaters that pull off maturity beyond their years, but that wouldn't be C/P. And that's not a bad thing. Give them time to grow. In ice dancing, it used to be that a team wouldn't hit their prime until their late 20's, or well into their 30's. Just because we have some incredibly talented teams in their early 20's winning Olympic medals doesn't mean this is normal. What's the rush? Why do we suddenly expect all teams to be all grown up and fully developed by early 20's? I think about Del/Shoes, Dub/Lau, and even Wing/Lowe. None of these teams reached their prime until 30's or almost 30's. Thinking about Dub/Lau, they had some pretty eye-brow raising, messy programs early in their Senior careers. But they finished their competitive careers with the best of the best - refined, gorgeous, innovative, consistent, ...(sigh).

And this comment applies to Weaver/Poje as well. Yes, Poje needs to work on consistency/mental strength under pressure, Weaver needs to fix her lines among other things. But there is loads of potential in this team, and they are still very young. Without the glaring errors in the FD, they would have been 2nd. Really, it was defeat from the jaws of victory for them, unfortunately. A learning experience for them, I'm sure. Yes, both teams are serious athletes who continue to invest time, heart, energy, money into the sport (I'm not sure I'd class them as professional athletes at this stage yet.) But they are not robots, and they are both early in their development. Hopefully both will be around for quite a few years yet.

The Shibutanis last year looked like were in danger somewhat, dropping to 4th at JUNIOR Worlds. However they are having an amazing resurgence this season.

Shibs have got to be my new favorite team this year. They have been amazing at Junior for a long time, and then had an "off" year last year because of growth issues. They are simply back in a groove this year. And this is maybe drift from another thread, but really, I think the Shibs have the most potential of all the new teams moving from Junior to Senior this year. It is going to be very exciting to watch this team develop over the next few years.

Doris, that was the oddest telecast..They called it live in their listings..and I guess maybe Scott Russell presented the taped portion on his regular Saturday show ,where he was the only live thing.Earlier in the program they said they were going to show W/P and then they didn't, and they let the tape problem run on for some time before cutting it...sigh. But it was good to see the couples on something bigger than my computer screen ( I can't even watch the full screen version on many livestreams..too fuzzy)

Pogue..some thoughts on your thoughts on my thoughts...

When I say I'm taking The V/M story at face value,it's with crossed fingers.. I don't want to fall into too much "What if.."-ing for my own sanity's sake, so I trust that they'll be careful. And I know that at best, they'll still have lack of mileage against them... BTW I think Tessa's got it.."IT" just isn't an on the floor at a latin social dance thing, she's got that "Latin Ballroom Queen" thing going..sensuous , yet somehow, confidently aloof.

As to D/W, you put it very well...But I must say, too, that's the best I've seen them perform it, and it appears to still be improving.
I love Tango, and when you're watching a good one ,you can almost feel a bit of a voyuer , because the couple should be so involved with each other, nothing else exists but them and the music.In fact they have to be so involved , because the prompts in his lead can be so subtle that the partners must be attuned ,body, mind ( and maybe , soul ). Oh, they can look away from each other, but the connection is still there .The man dominates, the woman submits ( but that doen't mean she doesn't want to..if only for the duration of one dance).
Meryl looks a perfect Tango girl, right down to her jewelry. ( Is Charlie's hair long enough to slick back into a ponytail yet ? I'd suggest a bit of stubble, but that would be wrong for their SD, and he's fabulous in that, with his curls and the neck cloth. The absolute picture of a 19thC hero. )
Charlie needs to seem a bit more dominant and masterful in the FD, and it all needs to feel a bit more intimate, IMO...I love the difficulty and the intricacy of their FD and definitely think it could take the prize..I just want perfection for them ( and for me )..

The best Charlie move in that FD is when he throws Meryl into a singles spin at the exit of the pair spin. Gorgeous with the tango theme, and it shows up really clearly in the 4CC's vid.

Charlie could at least gel up his hair and grease it back for the tango, and I'm hoping he will. He used to ponytail it for Latin when he still had his curls.

At one of the GPs (NHK? SA?) he showed up with stubble, but it didn't work for the SD all that well, and apparently his beard doesn't grow fast enough to generate stubble between the SD and FD I haven't seen stubble since.

Agreed, Doris. It hardly seems like a post-Olympic year, does it. I'm on pins and needles waiting for this Worlds, and not just for ice dance, either. When you think of what Men's and Ladies' promise, it's hard not to start marking the days off on the calendar and planning how much caffeine to take to stay up for the all-nighter. Pairs is about the only discipline I'm not champing at the bit over.

Speak for yourself! I haven't been so excited for the pairs in quite some time. I am so hoping that Yankowskas & Coughlin can replicate or better their truly amazing Nationals LP performance at Worlds! I want to see the World debut of Volosozhar & Trankov!! I am hoping that Kavaguti & Smirnov skate their LP perfectly! It is a gorgeous piece of choreography. And it's the last performance for Pang & Tong! Who will show up for the other 2 Chinese pairs? Will they be underage And Savchenko & Szolkowy, of course.

Oops! Meant to add Cappelini/ La Notte just won the Mont Blanc trophy ( apparently their FD is Umbrellas of Cherbourg )..and K/A ( Max Shabalin was with them in the K&C) were second... at least we know C/L have an FD., or maybe it's old news and I just wasn't aware...

Speak for yourself! I haven't been so excited for the pairs in quite some time. I am so hoping that Yankowskas & Coughlin can replicate or better their truly amazing Nationals LP performance at Worlds! I want to see the World debut of Volosozhar & Trankov!! I am hoping that Kavaguti & Smirnov skate their LP perfectly! It is a gorgeous piece of choreography. And it's the last performance for Pang & Tong! Who will show up for the other 2 Chinese pairs? Will they be underage And Savchenko & Szolkowy, of course.

I want to take the explanation at face value, I really do. But I remember how much they hid Virtue's problems during the Olympic season. I love how natural they seem doing this, though. Even if Virtue doesn't quite nail the gyrating sexuality of the piece she really is awesome and Scott of course is the best male dancer in the world.

I think in the end it's the difference between drama and passion. ... Additionally, because the program is so difficult it's so clearly effort-full, which leaves even less room for natural emotion. In the end, I'm still awestruck but what they do, but yeah, they miss that tango feeling.

OK, I'm starting to lose who exactly said what, but some great comments in this thread by everyone and please whoever said what take all due credit and my apologies for not giving specific acknowledgement. Anyway, agree with Doris, IP, Colleen, and others on so many points, especially the ones in bold above: Scott was really the riveting one in the part of the FD we saw -- definitely tending to agree he is "the best male dancer in the world." Also agree Tessa didn't quite have the gyrating motion of the samba down, at least as I understand it having taken some samba ballroom classes but certainly not being an expert. But of course her training time has got to have been limited. Also agree with what I think has been said on this thread (but perhaps elsewhere) that Tessa is really more attractive in "street dress" and "normal"/nonstage makeup to me. Not that that's important but still she really looks much more eye-catching in person to me, oddly, so maybe that's something they could translate into her on-ice look -- but of course that's hardly a concern given their success and it's just a subjective comment anyway.

Also agree that I hope the withdrawal here had nothing directly to do with Tessa's surgery but you do kinda have to wonder. Regardless of the specific nature of the current issue, I hope she recovers 100% as soon as possible and whether or not they finish the competition at Worlds that they keep this FD for next year. Very refreshing to watch.

Re: D/W, great comments on their sheer athleticism and difficult moves but still needing to bring more emotion into their pieces -- but also how the technical difficulty (loved the comment "effort full" -- so true) can make showing that emotion so hard to pull off ["Work, work, work and keep time and rhythm but make it look easy and don't just smile, no, smile or grimace or appear to cry or about to die or ..." ]. Still, hard not to be amazed at what D/W do athletically -- loved the comment about how many crunches Meryl must do daily to be able to perform some of these moves!

Oops! Meant to add Cappelini/ La Notte just won the Mont Blanc trophy ( apparently their FD is Umbrellas of Cherbourg )

How interesting. People often point out how Paul/Islam are very much like Virtue/Moir. I see it even more with Cappellini/LaNotte. Check out Tessa's dress/hair from their 2007 Valse Triste FD, then look at Anna's from their 2008 La Traviata FD (OK, Tessa's dress was purple, Anna's was red--but otherwise stunningly similar). And now Umbrellas of Cherbourg. . . .

Don't get me wrong--not putting anyone down here! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. And there are worse people to emulate than Tessa and Scott. . . .